Olympia Snowe: Liz Cheney challenge to Mike Enzi ‘unfortunate’

Liz Cheney has not made a case for her challenge to Mike Enzi in a Wyoming Republican primary next year, former Sen. Olympia Snowe told POLITICO.

The Maine Republican senator said the decision by Cheney to take on the genial third-term senator is “unfortunate,” given that Enzi travels home often and reflects his constituents’ conservative beliefs while also working “to do the right thing for the right reasons” legislatively.

Snowe served with Enzi in the upper chamber for 16 years and since her retirement in January has increasingly sought to defend her colleagues from conservative challengers. She and former moderate Rep. Steve LaTourette (R-Ohio) are banding together to protect the party’s centrist members.

LaTourette said in an interview Monday that their group will be taking a close look at the Wyoming race. Other Senate GOP candidates he said they are looking to protect are Sen. Susan Collins in Maine and Rep. Shelley Moore Capito in West Virginia.

Cheney has sought to position herself as a fresh-faced alternative to the longtime legislator — but initial polls show Enzi with a wide lead. Snowe said Senate Republicans need more people like Enzi focused on problem solving rather than those critical of compromise.

“She’s a talented, very capable woman,” Snowe said of Cheney. But “where the party stands at this point, it’s important to have Mike Enzi in the process.”